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Orlando, FL. 

February 7, 2020 marked a major milestone of the Cyber Security & Privacy Lab. The grand opening of the new 1224-sq ft lab was held. 30 graduate students celebrated their new home. In the past two years, the lab space for the CyberSP Lab has tripled along with the number of PhD students. Dr. Debra Reinhart, Associate VP for Research, Dr. Michael Georgiopoulos, Dean of CECS, Dr. Charles Reilly, Associate VP for Academic Affairs, and Dr. Manoj Chopra, Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Dr. Gary Leavens, Chair of Department of Computer Science, and Dr. Yan Solihin, Director of CyberSP Cluster, were attending the Grand Opening, along with most cluster faculty members, FCI team, cluster postdoc, and cluster graduate students. 

"The cluster is not about a building or room in a building. It is about the people. The new lab allows lab members to increase their interaction and collaboration, leading to more collaboration and appreciation of the breadth and depth of research in cyber security & privacy," said Dr. Solihin. "The CyberSP Cluster has been one of the most successful clusters at UCF. It is an area of interest to our many UCF stakeholders and an area of national and continuing importance. We are looking forward to the cluster's continuing and sustained success in the future," said Dr. Georgiopoulos. "This is a major milestone for the CyberSP Cluster. We are glad that UCF can provide the space needed for the cluster expansion," Dr. Reinhart said.

"As we celebrate the opening of the new lab, we also celebrate cluster success in the last 2 years," Dr. Solihin continued. In the past 18 months, the cluster brought external funding of more than $6 million, including two $1M+ medium grants from NSF, a NSF CAREER award, grants from ONR, DARPA, NSWCDD, Sandia, as well as industry gifts from Intel, Sophos, and soon Lockheed Martin. The cluster currently has three NSF career award winners, including the most recent recipient Dr. Paul Gazzillo. The cluster has one member who is both ISCA and HPCA Hall of Fame recipient. The cluster has published papers at top venues including ISCA, MICRO, ASPLOS, CCS, Usenix Security, et cetera, a few of them first ever at UCF. The cluster expects to graduate its first PhD students this year. "Having exposure to the breadth of topics in Cybersecurity as a student is important for future success in career. To me, this is what this lab is all about. I challenge each lab member to talk to one another and to know the research of every person in the lab in the next 12 months," Dr. Solihin concluded.